Normal: Named for a School, Not a State of Mind

Normal, Illinois got its unusual name from the institution that put it on the map. A normal school was a teacher-training college, the word coming from the French ecole normale, meaning a school that set the standard. When Illinois Governor William Bissell signed the law creating Illinois State Normal University on February eighteenth, eighteen fifty-seven, the university was the first public university in Illinois, the first normal school in the Mississippi Valley, and the ninth such institution in the entire United States.

Abraham Lincoln, then a lawyer, did legal work to secure the school's early funding. A town grew up around the campus and took the school's name. Illinois State is still here today, with about twenty thousand students.

Normal adjoins Bloomington directly to the north and together they form one of the central Illinois metro areas anchored by corn, insurance, and State Farm's global headquarters.